Flooring Types

Jeffrey Anderson | Improvement Center Columnist | December 13, 2011

Furniture, paint, and wallpaper can define the style of individual rooms in your home, but the flooring types you choose can often tie the entire package together. Your flooring may be the first thing your guests notice when they walk into a room. Flooring is the foundation of a room's personality. There are countless floor covering possibilities when remodeling a room, and even within each type of flooring there are many styles that can help set the tone of the room's decor.

These hardwood flooring styles can paint a picture

There are many flooring types you can choose for your room makeover, but it may be difficult to find a more attractive option than hardwood. The different varieties of hardwood flooring can be used over just about any subfloor and many types are suitable for DIY installations. However, one of the best qualities of hardwood is that the many flooring styles available can accent just about any decor. A few of your decorating options:

Casual country--for a farmhouse look try wide plank or random width hardwood flooring. Both flooring types are available in solid hardwoods such as oak, maple, and cherry or go with an engineered hardwood if you're planning an installation over a concrete slab

Mountain cabin--if you want your room to look like it belongs in a mountain cabin or vacation home by the lake, select a hardwood flooring style with a distressed finish. Flooring manufacturers offer hardwood with artificial nail and worm holes that can give the wood instant age and character. If artificial isn't your style, choose a reclaimed hardwood for your project. Reclaimed flooring is available in many wood species and in some cases could be hundreds of years old

Refined and elegant--narrow strip hardwood has been used in higher-end homes for many years and can upgrade the appearance of just about any room. This flooring style is available as a solid hardwood or a DIY-friendly, prefinished, engineered flooring

Hardwood flooring styles can vary in price depending on the type, wood species and size you select. Shipping costs can also affect your final price if you're dealing with a distant distributor. An approximate budget figure for prefinished flooring might be around $5 a square foot for oak engineered flooring and $6 a square foot for oak in a solid hardwood. If you would like an estimate tailored to your home from a local hardwood flooring contractor, just fill out the form on this page.